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Thursday, May 19, 2016

#DBlogWeek Day Four: The Healthcare Experience

I apologize for how late this is going up; I've been finishing up my final project for AP lit and am currently taking a tiny break from that to write up a blog post. Well, let's jump into it!

Most people who live with a chronic illness end up with a lot of experience when it comes to dealing with healthcare. How would you improve or change your healthcare experience? What would you like to see happening during medical visits with your healthcare team? How about when dealing with your health insurance companies? What's your Healthcare Wish List or Biggest Frustration? Today is the day to share it all!

I go to the doctor. A lot. More often than most do, to say the least. I'm at the endocrinologist four times per year, my pediatrician once a year, the dentist twice a year, and my eye doctor once per year. That's probably six more doctor's visits yearly than the average person has in two years. To say that I have plenty of experience with doctors in an understatement. This means that I also have plenty of time to form opinions and gripes about what I'm constantly having to deal with, whether it has to do with my actual endocrinologist visits or The System. (Capitalizing it makes it seem more menacing. It worked, right?) Here, in bulleted form (because I love lists) is my list of potential improvements for The System.

For the endocrinologist: Please. Please. Please. Make the wait time shorter. I really abhor sitting in your office for 45 minutes waiting for my doctor's appointment. Sitting and watching other people wait just isn't that exciting. I also wish that you guys could download data from my blood tester and CGM at your office, so if I forget my logs at home, or if you want to see certain data, you can get all of it there. That would make life for everyone so much easier. (And I wouldn't have to use all of the printer ink for my CGM graph.)

For the health insurance company: Actually, the insurance company my family gets coverage from, Cigna, is pretty amazing. We (knock on wood) have never had issues involving getting new pumps, getting permission for CGMs, or choosing what insulin or blood testers we want. Hopefully that will stay the same after Anthem and Cigna officially merge.

For Neighborhood Diabetes: You guys are required to distribute my CGM supplies. Why? I don't know. If you all could kindly actually put my supplies on auto-refill, instead of forcing me to call every three months, order supplies, and ask for auto-refill for the 80th time, that would be lovely.

For Animas customer service: You guys rock. I called you all one at 3 am and you still helped me out. A+.

Honestly, I am lucky enough to have an awesome endo and insurance company. I know not everyone is this lucky, and wish that other insurance companies could get it right, instead of forcing people to pay out of pocket for CGMs, to use only one type of insulin, or to only use one type of pump. That is awful and I wouldn't want to live without having a choice of what I get to use to deal with this condition that I didn't choose. I want all insurance companies to remember that patients are people too, and that all people deserve choices.

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Thanks for sticking around through #DBlogWeek day four! If you want to share your opinion or read other's on The System, you can chek out all of the posts for today's topic here.